Why Is This Important?

Asthma can usually be managed in an outpatient setting, reducing the need for emergency department visits. Tracking rates of emergency department visits can aid in identifying populations or areas with inadequate access to routine medical care.
An asthma attack can necessitate an emergency department visit and can be initiated by a variety of triggers. Some of these include exposures to environmental tobacco smoke, dust mites, cockroach allergen, mold, pets, strenuous physical exercise, and air pollution. Two key air pollutants that can affect asthma are ozone (found in smog) and PM or particulate matter (found in haze, smoke, and dust).
The majority of problems associated with asthma, including emergency department visits, are preventable if asthma is managed according to established guidelines. Effective management includes control of exposures to factors that trigger exacerbations, adequate pharmacological management, continual monitoring of the disease, and patient education in asthma care.

Graph

Supplemental Graphic

Map of Asthma Emergency Department Visits per 10,000 Population by Local Health District, Utah, 2013-2014

This map was made using a method called "fixed effect test of significance" where classes are based on statistically higher or lower rates than the state rate.

Data Table

Data Notes

Notes

The ICD-9 code used to define asthma is 493. All ED encounters are included in the presented data, which includes those that were treat and release visits, as well as those that resulted in hospital admission. Rates were age-adjusted to the U.S. 2000 standard population.
Prior to 2015 San Juan County was part of the Southeast Local Health District. In 2015 the San Juan County Local Health District was formed. Data reported are for all years using the current boundaries.

Data Sources

Population Estimates: National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) through a collaborative agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau, IBIS Version 2015

Current Outlook

How Are We Doing?

In 2014, Utah was well below the Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) objectives for ages 0-4 and 5-64, and met its state ED target for 0-4. The emergency department visit rate among the elderly ages 65+ in 2014 (21.0 per 10,000 population) currently exceeds the HP2020 objective (13.7 per 10,000 population). In 2014, Utah's overall emergency department visit rate due to asthma was 24.7 per 10,000 population (crude rate). Asthma emergency department visits are higher among young male children when compared to young female children. However, among adolescents and adults, females have higher rates.

Health Improvement Resources

What Is Being Done?

The Utah Asthma Program (UAP) in conjunction with the Utah Asthma Task Force and other partners strive to maximize the reach, impact, efficiency, and sustainability of comprehensive asthma control services through providing a seamless alignment of the full array of services across the public health and health care sectors, so that people with asthma receive all of the services they need.
The UAP focuses on three types of strategies to create and support a comprehensive asthma control program, these include: building infrastructure strategies to support leadership, strategic partnerships, strategic communications, surveillance, and evaluation; linking services strategies to expand school- and home-based services; and creating health systems strategies to improve coverage, delivery, quality, and use of clinical services.
These strategies are expected to increase asthma control and quality of life, by increasing access to health care and by increasing coordination and coverage for comprehensive asthma control services both in the public health and health care sectors. Specifically, these strategies include identifying people with poorly controlled asthma, linking them to health care providers and NAEPP EPR-3 guidelines-based care, educating them on self-management, providing a supportive school environment, and referring to or providing home trigger reduction services for those who need them. The linkage function has the added benefit of bringing more people who might be high utilizers of emergency room and hospital services into primary care and also providing a resource for primary care providers to refer people for intensive self-management education and trigger reduction services when needed.

Available Services

Individual programs in the Bureau of Health Promotion, Division of Disease Control and Prevention, provide information and education to citizens, physicians, and health care providers on chronic conditions. For instance, users can find helpful information on disease management and prevention at the Utah Department of Health's Asthma Program website: [http://www.health.utah.gov/asthma/]
A list of Utah Asthma Program services for clinicians, community health workers, and people with asthma can be found here:
[http://health.utah.gov/asthma/pdfs/CAC.pdf]

Utah DOH

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